


In a Tumbleweed Wind

by the_rck



Series: How Many Hours in Dowry [3]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Precognition, Swearing, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22397719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Crawford wished that he could reject the idea of time travel. Even more, he wished he could put a bullet in this older, shark-eyed version of Hidaka and pretend that they'd never met. He poured more cream into his coffee and stirred. He kept his eyes on the swirl of white and black as they faded together. He took some comfort in feeling Schuldig's presence in the back of his mind.Schuldig would provide backup the instant Crawford needed it.
Series: How Many Hours in Dowry [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632988
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019





	In a Tumbleweed Wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [demitas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/demitas/gifts).



> I considered upping the rating for language and then thought about the books read by teenagers I know. I also thought about what I hear them say. I suppose, if this were a movie, it would get an R rating entirely for language. Take that as a warning if swearing is a deal breaker.
> 
> There are threats of violence in here, but what happens is less than the canon typical levels.
> 
> Title from Jenny Molberg's poem, "Our Lady of the Rio Grande."

Ken didn't have to wait long, and when he stepped out of the shadows, he saw surprise on Crawford's face. Ken would treasure that expression for a very long time. Ken smiled, showing teeth. He also held up empty hands to show that he wasn't there to attack anyone. "We need to talk," he said, "before the four bozos up there get done with the murder thing."

Ken recognized the look on Schuldig's face as the telepath checked the building and realized that, yes, there was a Hidaka Ken several floors up who was intent on murdering the fuck out of Takatori Reiji. "It's not that hard," Ken said. "I don't look that much like him any more."

Crawford frowned.

Schuldig scowled.

Farfarello had steel in his hands.

Naoe had his eyes on Crawford, but Ken could feel the pavement under his feet tremble.

Ken could also feel Schuldig's mind digging at his, searching for answers, so he returned Schuldig's scowl. "You're a really nosy asshole," Ken said flatly. He ran the Jaws theme through his mental shields because he knew Schuldig was seeing them as water with darkening depths.

Ken wondered if this was the Schuldig who would teach the Ken in the building above how to shield his mind. Then Ken discarded the question. That shit was strategy, long term. It didn't matter for keeping Schwarz from murdering his ass right then.

Crawford held up a hand, and the rest of his team settled.

Ken smiled again. "Apparently, there's an apocalypse coming." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "Well, several actually. Which one depends on what happens next, so I thought--" He met Crawford's eyes. "People tell me you've failed to stop it over and over, but I think..." He hoped he was right. He hoped Crawford would think he was right. "I think that's because no one told you about time travel."

Again, Crawford looked surprised. He pushed his glasses up his nose, and one lens caught and reflected light.

Ken wondered if even Schuldig realized that Crawford used his precognition to ensure the dramatically appropriate gleams. Probably not. If Schuldig knew, he'd piggyback his own theatrics on Crawford's gift.

Crawford nodded slowly. "Perhaps we can all sit down with coffee. There's a place that's open in spite of the curfew. Very exclusive but... public enough."

Ken nodded back. "Better idea than lowering inhibitions when we can't trust each other for shit." The only places he knew that were likely to be open tonight were bars. 

And maybe the cafeteria at the hospital where Aya-chan and Sakura-chan were, but he wasn't taking Schwarz anywhere near those two. Not tonight. Not soon. They'd probably need both girls eventually, but he'd like their introduction to Schwarz to be less traumatic than last time.

Now Schuldig looked surprised, and Ken was sure it was his words rather than Crawford's.

Ken was never actually going to like Schuldig, so he bared his teeth at the telepath in an expression that in no way resembled a smile.

****

Crawford wished that he could reject the idea of time travel. Even more, he wished he could put a bullet in this older, shark-eyed version of Hidaka and pretend that they'd never met. He poured more cream into his coffee and stirred. He kept his eyes on the swirl of white and black as they faded together. He took some comfort in feeling Schuldig's presence in the back of his mind.

Schuldig would provide backup the instant Crawford needed it.

Hidaka had his hands wrapped around his own cup; Crawford could see that without looking up. Schuldig had herded Farfarello and Nagi to a separate table and started an argument about the artistic merits of different pop stars. Crawford hadn't even had to ask Schuldig to do that.

"You two are a good team," Hidaka said. "Better than Weiss." He lifted his cup and drank. "We never got beyond the coworkers with overlapping drama stage." He set his cup down. "Probably says a lot that Omi was more reliably mature than the rest of us."

Those words didn't fit the Hidaka that Crawford knew. Crawford raised his eyes. "How many years?" he asked.

"Fifteen-ish," Hidaka said, "but I'm pretty sure I've already destroyed that future by talking to you. Also, I'm now in this time twice; we'll have to track that." He looked over Crawford's shoulder at the other members of Schwarz. "Twenty gets you sixty, if you lot off me, there'll be another me wandering in soon enough." He inhaled noisily. "I don't know-- or know of-- many people who can track bullshit timelines when other assholes might go back and change the things that already happened, so you're likely to be the go-to guy for alternate timeline me, too."

Crawford wrapped the fingers of one hand around the edge of his chair and squeezed. The past had always been static as far as his gift was concerned, but now, he could feel that breaking and smearing into the same mess that the future often was. "That's not the only reason that killing you would--" He had to stop himself from snarling. "I can't unknow."

"Eh." Hidaka leaned back in his chair. "Bet Schuldig could make you. There'd be side effects, but he _could_." He opened a hand as if releasing something. "Choices."

"You are enjoying this." Crawford hadn't thought that Hidaka had this sort of viciousness.

"I've never been the older and more experienced one before, not with you." Hidaka's words glittered with diamond shards of things that could happen but hadn't yet and probably wouldn't now that Crawford knew they might. "I put it at at least 50% that the you I knew was preparing for this meeting without actually knowing what he needed me around for."

Fifteen years. This Hidaka actually was older than Crawford.

"How did you travel?" Crawford thought that, even if Hidaka lied, the man's words would limit the possibilities that Crawford's gift was throwing at him.

"Device," Hidaka said. "Hand-held. Looks like a flower pot with a hand crank."

The flower pot part was definitely a lie. None of the devices Crawford could see in the shifting ribbons of might-be looked anything at all like that. "You don't want me to know." He managed to keep the words neutral.

"I need some leverage," Hidaka replied. "I'm not part of your team. You don't trust me. I don't trust you." He drank some coffee. "I'm also not telling you who gave me the device or who gave it to them. The damn thing's been passed around like a cold in a pre-school, and everyone's had a different idea about how to make the world better." He fixed his cold, predator's eyes on Crawford's face. "You're my only idea so far, and I will rip your throat out before I let Schwarz destroy the world for shits and giggles."

Crawford didn't flinch. He'd stood before the Elders and lied without giving himself away. Instead, he forced himself to joke. "Destroy the world? That's where I keep all my stuff!"

Hidaka didn't appear to get the reference. He drank more coffee. "You've got two active Nihilists on your team. The guy with the knives keeps slipping your leash, and you lure him back with the promise of more later. Your telepathic sadist has better control, but he'd really rather have a world where he doesn't need to use it."

Crawford nodded because those evaluations weren't wrong. He resolutely suppressed his curiosity about how Hidaka had learned the word 'Nihilists.' His gift picked up on the question anyway and showed him a flash of Hidaka talking to two girls who might have been twins but weren't.

"And Naoe's going to walk away eventually because you're a dick about his love life." Hidaka smiled again in that way that suggested he was considering whether or not he could rip out Crawford's throat with his teeth or if he maybe needed a better weapon before he tried it.

"He's too young--"

Hidaka raised his eyebrows, looking unimpressed. "If he was five years older, he might put up with it because he trusts you, or he might give you the finger about who he dates without quitting. He's fifteen, and you're really seriously a dick."

Crawford swallowed his words because he could see, now, how many futures were weighted toward Nagi leaving Schwarz. Crawford had always known it was probable. He'd just never had any clear idea _why_. "I don't like you. I'm never going to."

"I'm never going to like you, either." Hidaka shrugged. "I just won't chase an apocalypse for the fun of fucking you over. You're not all that."

Crawford's brain felt too big for his skull. There were too main potential futures that blazed with warnings and too many pasts that were rotting away underneath his present. He pinched his nose and tried to force it all back. A precognitive seizure in public was not the sort of thing Ezset would overlook. He pushed himself to his feet.

Shuldig's mind pressed against Crawford's, shoring it up. "We should take a walk," Schuldig said as he came to stand next to Crawford.

Crawford lost time.

*****

Schwarz had a very nice apartment. Ken supposed he ought to have expected it. He knew how much Crawford valued comfort. The man would give all of it up for an advantage, even a minor one, but mostly there wasn't any advantage to be had by sleeping on bare boards, eating instant ramen, or wearing shirts with frayed cuffs.

Schuldig left Ken in the main room with Naoe and Farfarello. 

"Mind if I get water?" Ken asked. It seemed like a reasonable conversation starter or, at least, something that was likely to give him a better feel for how likely they were to murder him.

Ken hadn't spent enough time with the Irishman in his own timeline to have any solid notion of how to handle him. To complicate things further, the Naoe who Ken had known was many years older than this one. Fifteen year olds did really damned stupid things just because they were fifteen.

Naoe looked at Farfarello. Farfarello fixed his single eye on Ken. The silence stretched long enough that Ken wasn't sure he'd get an answer. Then Farfarello shrugged. "Wash your glass when you're done with it."

Naoe looked disappointed, so Ken figured he couldn't count on protection from that quarter if things went south.

"Yeah, sure." Ken started opening cupboards to find a glass.

"No prying," Naoe said as he telekinetically slammed the door of the cupboard Ken had just opened.

"Kid, if you're hiding secrets in your kitchen, you don't--" Ken shook his head. "I know what sort of shit Crawford keeps in his cupboards. I'm not going to find the fucking Ark of the Covenant at the bottom of your bag of rice. I'm not even going to find whatever the hell he's taking for migraines these days."

And, really, Schuldig was pretty certainly monitoring them all. If Schuldig hadn't heard every whisper of Crawford's thoughts about their conversation in the coffee shop, Ken would swallow the Tokyo Tower. Whole. There were things Crawford didn't share with Schuldig, but conversations with potentially booby-trapped enemies wasn't one of them.

Ken got himself water and went back to the living room. He sat on the end of the couch that had the worst view of the television, on the theory that that wasn't likely to be anyone's favorite spot.

Farfarello pulled out a knife and started cleaning his nails.

Naoe made a frustrated sound that Ken was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to hear. Naoe fidgeted and glanced toward where the bedrooms had to be.

"If you want to go read porn," Ken said, "don't let me stop you. I'm pretty sure this guy's fast enough to gut me even without you holding me down."

Naoe's hands balled into fists, and he snarled.

Ken kind of expected the full Darth Vader Force choke, but Naoe only kicked his right heel against the wall hard enough to dent the plaster.

Farfarello smiled. "Could," he confirmed. He looked at Naoe.

Naoe flushed. "I don't--!"

Farfarello's smile widened as one of the throw pillows from the couch lofted itself toward him. He skewered it. "Why not?" he asked in the tone of a person deliberately provoking a fight.

Naoe relaxed. "Asshole." He wasn't even looking at Ken any longer.

Ken made sure he had a coaster then set his glass of water on the end table. He didn't particularly want it. He'd just thought that doing something was better than sitting still.

And, yet, here he was, sitting still. At least the two junior members of Schwarz seemed to have decided not to murder him. He sighed. "Are there reports to send in? Or other things that those two would usually take care of but that you guys know how to do?" He considered for a moment. "Abyssinian probably murdered Takatori by now. That would be on the news. Or is it an assassination because Takatori was Prime Minister?"

"Assassination," Farfarello said. He tilted his head as if he were considering it. "Technically, you're all assassins. You're getting paid for it."

" _I'm_ not," Ken retorted. "I'm not Siberian any more." He leaned back and put his hands behind his head.

"I'll send the report," Naoe said. "I can fake Crawford's style. Well, I can fake how Schuldig fakes Crawford's style." He started walking toward the back of the apartment.

"That should hold," Ken said. "It's not like the old fucks take any of you seriously as threats." He laughed as a memory came to him. "Hell, if nothing changes, Weiss bags two of the three."

Ken didn't even flinch when one of Farfarello's knives embedded itself in the cushion four inches to Ken's left. It wasn't as if it had been a serious murder attempt. He left the knife where it was.

Naoe muttered something that Ken was sure was insulting and vanished from Ken's line of sight.

"He'll come around," Farfarello said.

"Won't matter if he doesn't." Ken didn't particularly want to die, but he'd made his peace with the inevitability of it a long time ago. "I'm honestly not that useful for a team that already has you." He straightened up and looked Farfarello in the eye. "My knowledge of the future is already worthless."

Someone standing behind Ken smacked him on the back of the head. Given the current occupants of the apartment, the hand pretty much had to belong to Schuldig.

"That hurt, you German motherfucker." Ken was too used to that sort of behavior to put much heat into it. He didn't even bother turning to look.

"Crawford said to make sure you didn't do anything stupid." Schuldig smacked the back of Ken's head again. "That? That would be stupid."

Ken pulled away, rubbed the back of his head, and turned to glare at Schuldig. "That? What the hell is 'that?' I have no plans."

Schuldig snorted. "You really have worked with me. I thought Crawford was seeing bullshit impossibilities." He pointed a finger at Ken. "And 'that' is you running off to eliminate the complications you represent. You need to talk to Balinese. Not tonight. Not even tomorrow, but in the next couple of weeks. Crawford's going to be useless at least that long while his brain resets."

Ken froze for an instant as he processed that. "I'm not fucking suicidal," he said. He supposed that bringing young Yohji in on the preventing the apocalypse thing made sense. He already knew about time travel, and he hadn't given Ran his device yet. If younger Yohji had known what Schwarz could do, he might have sought them out on his own.

Why the hell hadn't older Yohji done it? He had the device. He knew as much about where Schwarz would be during these months as Ken did. For a few icy seconds, Ken doubted his decision.

Then he remembered that he really couldn't make things worse.

He smiled at Schuldig. "When we get then, you're going to have to be really fucking nice to Sakura-chan. If she doesn't loathe you and Crawford, we can get a lot more shit done. She'll work with you anyway, given the alternatives, but it would be great if she didn't have flashbacks and didn't fantasize about ways of murdering both of you."

Schuldig looked gobsmacked.

Ken laughed and shook his head. "You're so young. I'd say 'innocent,' but that wouldn't even make a joke." He stood so that he didn't have to look up at Schuldig.

"Don't be breaking our telepath," Farfarello said softly.

"He's still faster than I am," Ken said, "and I don't really feel like taking a knife in the kidney when you get involved." He kept his hands where Farfarello could see them.

"Words," Farfarello said. "A single word in a single moment can break universes." He sounded like he knew the wounds a shattering universe could inflict. He sounded like he'd really get off on watching it as long as it wasn't happening to Schuldig.

Ken thought that was bullshit, but when he studied Schuldig's face, he realized that he had said something to upset the other man. Ken sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I never actually talked to you when you were this young. I'm used to you with more armor." It was as much of an apology as he would offer. "I'll probably do it again if you guys keep me around." He glanced over his shoulder at Farfarello. "I don't know you at all. You fucked off to Europe before I started hanging with Crawford and Schuldig. No baggage."

Schuldig made a sound that Ken interpreted as understanding. "Maybe a date to beat the shit out of each other in training?" the telepath offered. "Say, in three weeks?"

Ken sat on the couch again and picked up his water. "That's worth staying for," he allowed.


End file.
